Lessons From a Fish Market

A Seattle fish market is showing up in school districts,
bringing a message of passion and purpose to teaching and
learning.

A Seattle fish market is showing up in school
districts, bringing a message of passion and purpose to teaching and
learning.

In Seattle, few tourists leave town without stopping at Pike Place
Fish, where selling fish is pure theater. The unlikely entertainment
provided by the garrulous hams in bright-orange rubber overalls is a
sight to behold. Perhaps you've seen them on the TV sitcom "Frasier" or
in the film "Free Willy." As they hurl massive fish through the air,
banter with one another, and hug their customers, these vendors
maintain a long-standing tradition of well-integrated teamwork and
customer service in the extreme.

Now, via a 17-minute video plainly entitled "FISH," the Seattle fish
market is showing up in school districts, bringing a message of passion
and purpose to teaching and learning, using buzzwords and phrases like
"play," "make their day," "be there," and "choose your attitude."

You may ask how this fish-market film can possibly be relevant to
school culture. There are no explicit references to professional
development or instructional improvement anywhere in the video, so what
can it offer educators? It offers a powerful yet light- hearted model
of a learning community. And, in my opinion, we need as many such
examples as we can find. The unconventional setting of this model is a
refreshing departure from some of the school-based rhetoric with which
we are all too familiar.

The fishmongers share how they reinvented their very public
workplace—how they made it (and keep it) fun and effective. They
know each other's strengths, and they have the opportunity to learn
simply by observing one another's "practice" on a daily basis. Most
important, they are connected to a coherent set of goals that provide
direction, meaning, and a measuring stick for their work. This market
is effective because the values, behaviors, and norms of its employees
are well-aligned. Through a subtle but nonetheless powerful social code
of expectations, participants in this unusual community learn the
nuances of the work and keep it (if you'll excuse the wordplay)
"fresh."

Maintaining teaching's relative isolation means that
all of the things teachers do well go unobserved, unanalyzed, and, as
a result, rarely replicated or celebrated.

An important point to remember in thinking about the applicability
of this community's experience, and that of others, to our public
schools is that it is neither the nature of the work nor the
particularities of the goals that make a learning community strong. The
key to success lies in coherence around the work and goals. While it is
true that reaching a consensus on mission may be more difficult in some
contexts than others, the foundations needed to realize that mission
coherently—communication, leadership, and
self-evaluation—are universal.

In public schools, we need to think about learning communities in
ways that deepen teaching and learning—deepen our knowledge of
content, of each other as adults, and of our children and their
families and communities. Everything we do needs to focus on the core
of schooling: how children learn, how teachers teach, what gets taught
to whom, and how schools are organized to support teaching and
learning.

How should we be thinking about our work? I believe all of us need
to begin with ourselves. We cannot be effective members of a team
without first assessing where we are as individuals within the larger
context of the school community. What is it that we are doing that we
need to stop doing, and what is it that we are not doing that we need
to start doing?

In 1945, when Henry Atwell made his famous survey of 200 New York
teachers, more than 60 percent said they wanted certain practices and
resources: a professional library, a supervisor who acts as a
consultant or technical adviser, demonstration lessons, grade
conferences to discuss common problems, visits to outstanding schools,
participation in the formulation of school policies, individual
conferences with the supervisor, intervisitation of teachers,
after-school conferences for open discussion of problems, and
in-service courses and workshops.

Why is it that 56 years after the Atwell survey, many of us are
still talking about this wish list instead of doing
something to make it a reality? Why is it that we seldom experience the
kind of daily conversations and observations of practice with
colleagues that those in many other professions enjoy? The Seattle
fishmongers have figured out that they become more effective in their
jobs by observing one another's daily practice. How can we possibly
question whether teacher practice and student performance might benefit
from similar opportunities to observe and learn?

Why is it that teachers seldom experience the kind of
daily conversations and observations of practice with colleagues that
those in many other professions enjoy?

We have teachers in our schools with more than 25 years' experience
in classroom practice. Do we say that they have 25 years worth of
experience, or one year's experience done 25 times over? Maintaining
teaching's relative isolation means that all of the things teachers do
well go unobserved, unanalyzed, and, as a result, rarely replicated or
celebrated. It also means that the things teachers need help with are
rarely addressed. Not surprisingly, teachers in the vast majority of
schools where this culture of isolation is the norm feel unappreciated
for their successes and adrift in their struggles.

So, we have to look at ourselves. Should observation be established
as a vehicle for improvement, or is it a once- or twice-a-year
compliance function? I suggest that our present mode of operation not
only results in individual suffering, but in institutional ineptitude
as well. The growth of the teaching profession depends on honest
conversations about what we see in classrooms, about the practice
itself. It depends on our admitting what we don't know.

In many schools, the focus is the individual—the individual
student and the individual teacher—which creates competition. In
one sense, of course, this reflects an American cultural bias toward
independence. Much of our society places strong social value on
self-sufficiency and competitiveness. Relying too heavily on this
ethic, however, can run contrary to what we know about learning:
Learning and knowing are mutual acts. We operate as if the individual
is the prime agent of knowing, when in reality, learning requires many
eyes, ears, hearts, and minds. There must be continual discussion, and
"pushing back" in conversations about what people think. This is the
essence of a learning community.

We also need, moreover, to examine our understanding of community.
Community must become a central concept in how we teach and learn. We
need to balance our individual needs with the requirements for the
collective good.

How can we do this? A first step may be to stop leading "double"
lives. We should take time to know ourselves. Many of us are only too
familiar with what a double life is. We see instructional practice that
is not good for children and remain silent. We are aware of what we
don't know, yet pretend to know it. A first step toward ending this
duplicity is to have the courage to risk thinking thoughts out loud,
and to permit those thoughts to be influenced by others.

At the core of an honest learning community is the concept of
"informed dissent." There is no real knowing without it. All too often,
though, we link dissent with conflict. And since conflict makes people
uncomfortable or uneasy, we avoid it.

We need to take time to know ourselves, and to share
with colleagues what we know and don't know, by making our practice
public every day.

Informed dissent means having the capacity and the will to confront
issues without condemning each other as people. It is listening to the
voices of the very people with whom we might not agree, and hearing
them in deep and powerful ways. It means becoming comfortable with
conflict in order to check our perceptions, look at our biases, examine
our inferences, and begin to discuss exactly what we observe in
classrooms, based on what we know. It means discussing our points of
view honestly and making our practice public.

I used to remind my students that each of us is born into this world
with a unique set of "fingerprints." No matter what a person's
religion, ethnicity, culture, or gender, each of us has individual
gifts and talents to give the world. We are here for a reason. We have
something to contribute and to accomplish. With each of us bringing
forth our gifts and talents, the whole becomes greater than its
parts.

So what can we learn from "FISH"? That we need to take time to know
ourselves, and to share with colleagues what we know and don't know, by
making our practice public every day.

Deanna Burney is a senior fellow at the University of
Pennsylvania's school of education in Philadelphia.

Deanna Burney is a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's
school of education in Philadelphia.

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